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Published September 2, 2016 | Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Dawn arrives at Ceres: Exploration of a small, volatile-rich world

Abstract

On 6 March 2015, Dawn arrived at Ceres to find a dark, desiccated surface punctuated by small, bright areas. Parts of Ceres' surface are heavily cratered, but the largest expected craters are absent. Ceres appears gravitationally relaxed at only the longest wavelengths, implying a mechanically strong lithosphere with a weaker deep interior. Ceres' dry exterior displays hydroxylated silicates, including ammoniated clays of endogenous origin. The possibility of abundant volatiles at depth is supported by geomorphologic features such as flat crater floors with pits, lobate flows of materials, and a singular mountain that appears to be an extrusive cryovolcanic dome. On one occasion, Ceres temporarily interacted with the solar wind, producing a bow shock accelerating electrons to energies of tens of kilovolts.

Additional Information

© 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication 4 February 2016; accepted for publication 13 July 2016. We thank the Dawn team for the development, cruise, orbital insertion, and operations of the Dawn spacecraft at Ceres. C.T.R. is supported by the Discovery Program through contract NNM05AA86C to the University of California, Los Angeles. R.R.F. thanks the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Post-Doctoral Fellowship for support. A portion of this work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA. Dawn's Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector is operated by the Planetary Science Institute under contract with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (JPL). Dawn data are archived with the NASA Planetary Data System. Framing camera data may be obtained at http://sbn.psi.edu/pds/resource/dwncfc2.html. Spectral data from Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer may be obtained at http://sbn.psi.edu/pds/resource/dwncvir.html. GRaND data may be obtained at http://sbn.psi.edu/pds/resource/dwncgrd.html.

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